Tuesday, October 16, 2007

A Florida man who left a 5-year-old girl to be eaten alive by alligators and tried to kill her mother was sentenced to death Monday.

Prosecutors said Harrel Franklin Braddy, 58, attacked Shandelle Maycock and daughter Quatisha after he was released early from prison in another case for good behavior. He tossed Maycock in his car trunk in 1998, drove her to a remote sugarcane field and choked her to unconsciousness.

Braddy then drove the girl to a part of the Everglades known as Alligator Alley and dropped her in the water beside the road, prosecutors said. Authorities found the girl's body two days later, her left arm missing and her skull crushed.

Maycock woke up bleeding and disoriented, and survived.

Braddy was convicted in July of first-degree murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, attempted escape and other charges.

"Due to his own horrific actions, Harrel Braddy has caused a lot of pain to a lot of people, including the people who loved him and cared for him," prosecutor Abbe Rifkin said in an e-mail.